CPUs|Motherboards

Having explored P67 offerings from Intel and Gigabyte, we now have Asus P67 boards on our test bench. The P8P67 and P8P67 Pro are attractively priced given their respective feature-sets and they have a few other niceties that users will enjoy.

The Core i5-2400, i5-2500K, and i7-2600K are the top models in Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPU lineup. We compare them against other current Intel offerings as well as AMD's best quad and hex core chips. Our analysis shows they how compare in performance, cost, and energy efficiency.

The second portion of our Sandy Bridge examination focuses on the budget H67 chipset which enables use of the Sand Bridge CPU's internal HD 2000/3000 graphics, and more specifically, the Intel DH67BL and Asus P8H67-M EVO motherboards.

In our first piece on Sandy Bridge aka LGA1155, we examine Intel's new high-end integrated graphics chip (if there is such a thing), GMA HD 3000. It has inherent advantages from residing on the same die as the CPU, and it also has a clever dynamic clock generator.

The Athlon II X4 610e and Phenom II X4 910e are quad core processors from AMD with very low thermal design power of 45W and 65W, respectively. Are they as energy efficient as they claim and are the higher price tags justified?

890GX is AMD's newest integrated graphics chipset. It features an updated version of the HD 3300 graphics core, along with native SATA 3.0 support and extra bandwidth for add-on USB 3.0 controllers. Is it a worthy successor to 790GX?

Based on the mainstream Intel H55 chipset, the Asus P7H55D-M EVO has premium features like eSATA, FireWire, and USB 3.0 powered by NEC controller. It also has a tweak-friendly BIOS, making it a more versatile platform for Clarkdale than Intel's DH55TC.

A die-shrink to 32nm has given Intel enough room to pair a dual core processor and integrated graphics on the same chip package. The Clarkdale LGA1156 Core i5-661 also features Intel's new GMA HD graphics, TurboBoost, and hyper-threading.

Intel's D510M0 mini-ITX motherboard features the new Atom D510 processor and NM10 Express chipset. With the memory controller and graphics core on the same die, this new Atom platform looks to lower power consumption and possibly deliver better performance.